Theoretical Insights into the Interactions between Star-Shaped Antimicrobial Polypeptides and Bacterial Membranes

A structurally nanoengineered antimicrobial polypeptide consisting of lysine and valine residues is a new class of antimicrobial agent with superior antibacterial activity against multidrug-resistant bacteria and low toxicity toward mammalian cells. Utilizing coarse-grained models, we studied the interactions of microbial cytoplasmic membranes with polypeptides of either (K₂V₁)₅ (star-KV) or CM15 (star-CM15). Our computational results verify the low toxicity of polypeptides of (K₂V₁)₅ toward the dipalmitoyl phosphatidylcholine bilayer. This low toxicity is demonstrated to originate from weakened hydrophobicity combined with its random coil conformation for (K₂V₁)₅ because of the highly abundant valine residues, compared with the typical antimicrobial peptides, such as CM15. In the interactions with a palmitoyl-oleoyl-phosphatidylethanolamine/palmitoyl-oleoyl-phosphatidylglycerol bilayer, star-KV has greater ability in phase separation and generation of phase boundary defects not only in lipid redistribution but also in lateral dynamic movements, although both star-KV and star-CM15 can extract the phosphatidylglycerol lipids and purify the phosphatidylethanolamine lipids into continuum domains. We suggest that the polypeptide of (K₂V₁)₅ can nondisruptively kill bacteria by hampering bacterial metabolism through reorganizing lipid domain distribution and simultaneously “freezing” lipid movement.